War Photographer

War Photographer

In his darkroom he is finally alone
with spools of suffering set out in ordered rows.
The only light is red and softly glows,
as though this were a church and he
a priest preparing to intone a Mass.
Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh. All flesh is grass.He has a job to do. Solutions slop in trays
beneath his hands which did not tremble then
though seem to now. Rural England. Home again
to ordinary pain which simple weather can dispel,
to fields which don’t explode beneath the feet
of running children in a nightmare heat.Something is happening. A stranger’s featuresfaintly start to twist before his eyes,a half-formed ghost. He remembers the criesof this man’s wife, how he sought approvalwithout words to do what someone mustand how the blood stained into foreign dust.A hundred agonies in black-and-whitefrom which his editor will pick out five or sixfor Sunday’s supplement. The reader’s eyeballs prickwith tears between bath and pre-lunch beers.From an aeroplane he stares impassively at wherehe earns a living and they do not care.